2009

Publishers avoid highlighting the people who choose every word of the books they bring to English readers. This lack of transparency is misguided and unfair

Every reader goes through phases with their selection habits. Last year, for example, I wanted as little to do with the modern world as possible, for reasons I'm sure you can understand. I didn't want to read anything set in the last decade and I certainly didn't feel like reading any dystopian novels written to reflect an ominous future.  Read more

Seven years ago, Louise Ross swapped her career in financial law for a life of crime (writing). She has eschewed the traditional model of agents and publishers deciding instead to do it all herself, selling more than seven million copies in the process. Howdunnit?

There's the New York we see. The streets and neighborhoods, townhouses and office buildings, stoops and bodegas. That's a damn good city, electric and irrepressible, but there's another place just beyond that surface and it's populated by our ambitions. A city of nighthawks and hustlers. Around every corner, a new scheme.  Read more

Charlie and Lola creator Lauren Child is calling for attitudes towards children's books to change, criticising the "lazy" assumption that "creating work with children in mind is easier or less demanding".  Read more